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Free At 6pm?

A protest is taking place outside the GPO on O’Connell Street in Dublin at 6pm, following the arrest and prosecution of a 21-year-old woman in Northern Ireland, under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act.

She’s facing life imprisonment for taking abortion pills.

The Abortion Rights Campaign writes:

“We condemn the arrest and prosecution of a 21-year-old woman in County Down who has been accused of using poison to procure abortion. Both Mifepristone and Misoprostol are on the World Health Organisation’s list of essential drugs; these drugs are not poison. These are the same drugs used for medical abortions in the rest of the UK. If this woman lived in England instead of Northern Ireland she would have been prescribed this medication on the NHS. Mifepristone and Misoprostol are also routinely used for miscarriage management.”

Thanks for that. I saw her last week talking about the situation in NI and just thought they were one and the same. Either way it’s an effing disgrace that they arrested a woman for daring to make a decision about her own body.

What? “Up d’north”, women get married much younger, buy gaffs much younger, have their kids much younger and are much happier. Instead of unhealthy Southern feminists (a large number of whom are well beyond child-bearing age, drink too much and weigh too much) butting in to the affairs of the Northern Irish people, maybe they should look inwards on themselves before clumsily stomping through the delicate egg-shells of UK-Irish relations. A huge amount of work has gone in by smart, committed and self-sacrificing people (many of whom have sacrificed their lives) for it to be risked by a self-serving, right-on Facebook campaign outfit whose primary objective is hits and lols.

Southern feminists (a large number of whom are well beyond child-bearing age, drink too much and weigh too much) butting in to the affairs of the Northern Irish people

Hello Marian,

A feminist here. Not sure what constitutes a “Southern Feminist” – is it someone that just wants male/female equality in the South of our green Island and nowhere else?

I don’t fit any of your catagorisations of a “Southern Feminist” – Does that mean I am a Western or an Eastern feminist? Feeling confused, please enlighten.

Rather than “butting in” – myself and my friends and many, if not most others, on that march were showing solidarity with our sister in the North. Solidarity, empathy, sympathy and compassion.
You know, those actions of humanity that are the opposite of being a fvctw1t and shitting on a fellow or female human being.

Hope that clears things up for you.
Night! (or morning if that is how long this takes to clear moderation)
Anne

I agree with the sentiment but with the situation women in this part of the island face, where it’s a lot more work than simply extending the law from another part of the same jurisdiction, is the priority for gatherings of pro-choice folk near the GPO in Dublin really to lobby Westminster?

Last September, while handing out leaflets for the March for Choice, a man came up to me and told me that he wanted abortion to be legal because his life was so horrible that he wished he had been aborted. It was one of the most harrowing conversations I’ve ever had.

Im sure our northern cousins were just as disgusted as we were by this state’s responses to savita, our underage adylum seekrr and our dead pregnant woman in the last few years. Ironic that we as citizens couldn’t be half as barbaric to each other as our respective authorities are to us.

A number of the pro-choice organisations who were at the GPO tonight consider themselves to be all-Ireland groups, working to gain better access to abortion to women who need it regardless of what side of the border they live on.

It’s also worth noting that as a result of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, the government here can also arrest women for importing the “abortion pills” and taking them to terminate a pregnancy – as well as anyone who assists them. And that’s the act Labour are referring to in their election literature when they say they made Ireland better for women by legislating for the X Case.

If the Pope’s children are aborting, who will pay for their retirement? There’s a huge demographic bulge in Ireland and it’s among the 32 to 37 age group who are now well with the barren zone. Surely buying a home, saving for your retirement and having plenty of offspring as young as possible makes sense? How does shouting and moaning out in the pissing rain campaigning for taxpayer funded abortions in another country (that you’ve probably never visited) make any sense? Who’s listening? As much as you knock the silver-haired anti-abortion campaigners that rock up at Wynn’s, they have the wind of demographics in their sail to pay for their healthcare and pensions and have kids to come visit them. I hope it works out for the HIV infected, childless old folks of 2050 who’ve lived a life of regret and are facing into a bleak, guilty death. Alcohol/drugs/sex/entertainment only partially and temporarily drowns out the hopelessness, the loneliness, the wasted life, the what-might-have-been and the little hand tugging at your conscience.

Just because a woman has had an abortion does not mean a direct causation where a woman has no children. I had an abortion and went on to have two children.
One on five women in Ireland has had a termination. More than 1 in 4.75 women in Ireland has 2,5 children according to the national statistics office.

The Infant mortality rate in Ireland is 3.78 deaths/1,000 live births according to the last statistics gathered in 2013.

In 1923, there were 62 417 live births of which 20.5% did not make it to adulthood.
In 2014, there were 67 462 live births of which 14.6% did not make it to adulthood.

That is 255 babies born dead annually…
That is 9850 children who do not make it to 16
compared to 2500 women annually who have an abortion (source: Marie Stopes)

So *if* your real worry is preserving a generation to look after you in your old age:
Do you want to force 2500 women into having babies they do not want?
Do yiou want to research how to protect the lives of 10,000 babies and children who die before the age of 16?